Soccer Stories: Anecdotes, Oddities, Lore, and Amazing Feats

Football today would certainly not
be the same if it had not existed.
British sportscasterELTON WELSBY, mangling
an observation on the state of soccer

Soccer’s existence could be seen as almost inevitable: the kicking motion is,
physiologically, one of the most natural among those used in sports, while
others, such as throwing a ball overhand, are not. No wonder kicking
games have been around for thousands of years. Here is not a complete
history of soccer but a look at some of the more notable, revealing, or odd
moments in the sport’s evolution.

A Tale of Two Universities

Cambridge University and Harvard University. One in Cambridge,
England, one in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One nicknamed the Light
Blues, the other the Crimson. One played a leading role in creating
soccer, the other changed the course of soccer in America.

The sport owes an enormous debt to Cambridge University. Although many of England’s exclusive schools were playing a form of
the game in the early nineteenth century, it was Cambridge whose
rules helped form the framework for the modern game.

Eton, Winchester, Charterhouse, Westminster, Uppingham, Shrewsbury, and other elite public schools (what Americans would call private schools) tried to bring order to what was little more than a street

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